Summary
Astro Botwas not only a critical, and hopefully commercial, success, it was a love letter toPlayStation’s 30-year history. Bots representing iconic PlayStation franchises alongside third-party cameos and a few deep cuts waiting to be discovered. However, there’s not a singleFinal Fantasycharacter among Astro’s hundreds of Bots, but that doesn’t mean they never will be.
TheGamer caught up with Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet at the BAFTA Game Awards this week. Doucet was discussing how important it was for Astro Bot to celebrate the 30 years of PlayStation that came before it. When asked where Final Fantasy was during those celebrations, while their answer was short and sweet, it suggests there might be more Bots to come.
Doucet chuckled and glanced at his fellow Astro Bot dev Gento Mortia before looking back and saying, “Well, we’ll see”. Both Doucet and Morita smiled together, and while the ambiguous answer certainly hasn’t confirmed the likes of Cloud and Tidus might eventually join Astro Bot via some sort of DLC or series of bonus levels, it seemed a lot like they know something they’re not allowed to talk about yet.
Astro Bot Features A Lot Of Characters From Other Games
But None Of Them Are From Final Fantasy
While the knowing look and laugh implies Doucet and Morita know something we don’t, the alternative to that something being news about when we might be getting Final Fantasy Bots is that they know why characters from theSquare Enixseries could not, and maybe will not, be added to the game. While there has been no public rift between PlayStation and Square, Final Fantasy games that were previously PlayStation exclusives are starting to show up on other platforms. It was confirmed during last week’sSwitch 2Direct thatFinal Fantasy 7 Remake will be a launch game for Nintendo’s next console.
Even though a few notable characters were missing from Astro Bot at launch, most of them have since been added via DLC. Team Asobi thankedUbisoftin the game’s credits despite not including any of the studio’s characters. However,Rayman, Ezio, and other Ubisoft-owned video game icons have since been turned into Bots.
Even though Square isn’t a PlayStation-owned studio, a relationship between the two that extends back to the original release of Final Fantasy 7 means they’re often associated with one another. When you think of the original PlayStation, you think ofFinal Fantasy 7, and both Remake and Rebirth werePS4andPS5exclusives, respectively, at launch. Hopefully the “we’ll see” from Doucet is an indicator that there’s more Astro Bot DLC to come, and that Final Fantasy cameos will be its focus.
